So beautiful – 2016 Corton Clos du Roi – only for caressing…

Wednesday was an ‘enforced’ rest day at the home domaine – at least from the perspective of receiving grapes – there were simply no grapes to be had. With such a small harvest in the Côte de Beaune, it will be very difficult for the traditional, smaller (actually not just the smaller!) négociants this year, particularly since 2011 was their last ‘okay’ harvest from a volume perspective.

We did have some Corton Clos du Roi planned for Wednesday, but the picking was re-arranged for today – and a mere 30 cases of fruit at that – possibly about 2 barrels worth. No other grapes were planned for Thursday – another fabulous late-summer day..

But let me say, the fruit was really beautiful – still with some raisined/dried/mildewed ‘grapes’ to triage, but really perfectly ripe; the berries didn’t need a lot of coaxing to fall from the bunches, yet those berries were robust and not even close to being ‘mush-able.’ Probably the finest we have seen this year, so-far. We triaged only about 5kg worth of waste from those 30 cases!

Not much more to add regarding today, except that it took longer to wash our grape-receiving set-up, than it actually took to triage our only delivery of the day. Still, it looks like Friday will be very busy, particularly with rain forecast for Friday evening and the whole of Saturday…